THE bleak beauty of Haworth’s moorland landscape that shaped Emily, Charlotte and Anne Bronte is famously synonymous with their work.

This month, the Bronte Festival of Women’s Writing celebrates the great outdoors with a creative, empowering programme showcasing female creativity, alongside an inherent connection to the wild. Leading female writers, poets, artists and experts take centre stage in this key date in the diary at the Bronte Parsonage Museum.

This year’s festival - taking place in person and online - “amplifies the voices of women who are driving conversations in sustainability”. Inspired by the museum’s Year of the Wild, exploring the Brontes’ connection to nature and the landscape, the festival features talks, workshops, panel discussions and participatory events, as well as free family activities throughout the weekend.

Highlights include:

* Bradford based multilingual poet, spoken word artist and author Nabeela Ahmed, leads a poetry workshop rooted in all things wild. Nabeela will show how to incorporate different languages and dialects into poems;

* Libby Jackson, author of A Galaxy of Her Own: Amazing Stories of Women in Space, Space Explorers: 25 Extraordinary Stories of Space Exploration and Adventure, shares stories of human spaceflight;

* Author, naturalist, illustrator and occasional presenter of BBC Springwatch Emma Mitchell, discusses how nature and creativity can improve mental health, as in her Sunday Times bestseller The Wild Remedy;

* Women on Nature, with Katharine Norbury, editor of the Women on Nature anthology, Claire O’Callaghan, Victorian literature scholar and Emily Bronte expert, Monika Radojevic, poet and author of Teeth in the Back of My Neck, and Anita Sethi, best-selling author of I Belong Here, explore women who have written about nature through the ages, the importance of nature in literature and poetry, and how the landscape inspires creative writing, with specific focus on Emily Bronte;

* Visual artist Rebecca Chesney hosts Weather and the Brontes. In 2011 Rebecca sited a digital weather station in the Bronte Parsonage Museum garden to collect weather data for a year. Collating historic and contemporary weather records and cross-referencing them with descriptions of weather in the Brontes’ letters, poems and novels, she explored the influence weather had on their work. Returning to the project in 2023, Rebecca invites visitors to note their personal accounts of the weather in a Weather Book.

* Bestselling Yorkshire chef and vegan food writer Katy Beskow, ahead of the launch of her ninth cookbook, Easy Speedy Vegan, discusses how a plant-based diet can be great for health and the environment;

* Artist Venessa Scott leads a mindful drawing workshop finding the patterns and shapes of the mushroom;

Festival events take place at Haworth venues including the Bronte Parsonage Museum, Cobbles & Clay and the West Lane Baptist Church.

Sassy Holmes, Programme Officer at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, said: “It has been incredible to bring together some of the leading female writers on the natural world for this year’s festival. We know the outdoors played a really significant part in the life of the Bronte family and this connection resonates strongly with many of our visitors. It has been important too that we continue to connect with our audiences all over the world by delivering our festival programme online as well as in person. Bronte fans and contemporary writing enthusiasts can all be part of our festival.”

Currently on display in the museum is The Brontes and the Wild; Hardy and Free, a photography exhibition celebrating women in the landscape by Bradford photographer Carolyn Mendelsohn; and items from 2022 film Emily, including a costume and mask worn by actress Emma Mackey.

* The Bronte Festival of Women’s Writing-Women of the Wild runs from September 22-24. Visit bronte.org.uk